New head of the joint organisation of Enterprise Estonia and KredEx: Customer focus is our core value

19.01.2022

The new head of the joint organisation of Enterprise Estonia and KredEx, Lauri Lugna, started his work on 17 January. Lugna, whose previous position was the Secretary-General of the Ministry of the Interior for the past six years, aims to merge Enterprise Estonia and KredEx into a customer-focused whole.

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Lauri Lugna
Lauri Lugna

‘Together with our team and partners, we aim to build the best organisation supporting entrepreneurship and housing, and to keep the Estonian economy developing in a sustainable manner,’ Lugna said, while emphasising that the key to success is cooperation and considering the needs and expectations of customers.

According to him, the new organisation also has a key role to play in digital, green, and innovation transitions, and in the development of the Estonian capital market. ‘So far, the two organisations have carried out extremely important work in boosting economic and business development, and promoting housing services, but we must also be able to jointly lead much of the so-called triple transition of the state. Whether it is setting up a green fund to increase investments, driving the digitalisation of tourism and industry or developing new technologies to grow energy efficiency in housing,’ the new head of the joint organisation explained.

He highlighted that customer focus is one of the core values of the joint organisation. ‘We want to offer companies and apartment associations all services through a single window, and to be a competent advisor and partner,’ Lugna added.

According to Lugna, the next leap forward will require the Estonian economy to operate even more vigorously and boldly, to take risks and to cooperate, which serves as a prerequisite for creating new knowledge-intensive products and services. ‘To support this, the role of the foundation as a promoter of innovation needs to grow significantly, both in terms of facilitation R&D, supporting cooperation between companies and research institutions, and functioning of organisations.’

‘The role of the joint organisation and the public sector more broadly is to create a suitable environment for growth, including by mitigating risks that the private sector cannot immediately bear on its own or it is too time-consuming. Greater risk-taking by the open sector creates an eco-system for the private sector, with many other companies benefiting from a single success story,’ Lugna explained.

The organisation, with the legal name Estonian Business and Innovation Agency, was founded with the merger of Enterprise Estonia and KredEx in January 2022. Sigrid Harjo and Paul Kalle will continue as the members of the management board of the joint organisation. The substantive merger of the organisations will be completed during the course of the year. In the meantime, all services will continue to be provided under the existing brands of Enterprise Estonia and KredEx, and all services and websites will remain as well.